‘I don’t want children!’ she had proclaimed, wincing at the very idea. ‘I spent my teenage years in foster homes and I spent a lot of time helping to look after the younger ones and the babies. Kids are so much work and such a tie. I don’t think I’ll ever want any.’
But Betsy had discovered the hard way that Mother Nature had amazing ways of working her wiles to persuade a woman that what she wanted most in the world was a little baby. When she’d first married Nik she had been Cinderella and he had been Prince Charming. He had given her so much in terms of material things that she had somehow never dared to complain that he was rarely at home and was invariably preoccupied with business even when he was. He had missed her birthday and their first anniversary and slowly but surely she had become incredibly lonely and had begun to crave what she had never dreamt she would crave—a baby to love and keep her company.
In the grip of that desire she had made stupid optimistic assumptions, believing that Nik would spend more time at home if they had a child, that a child to share would bring them closer, hopefully breaking through his reserve as she had already discovered she could not.
She had made so many mistakes with Nik, Betsy acknowledged wretchedly, dabbing her damp cheeks dry on the sheet, soothing Gizmo when he whined and pushed his muzzle under her hand. But Nik had made just as many mistakes with her. Getting back into bed with him again, however, had to qualify as her crowning act of stupidity. Her face burned hot while her body ached in silent evidence of her weakness. Afterwards, Nik had been so cold, so sure that their renewed intimacy meant nothing. Why? Because it had meant nothing to him and he had been appalled by the idea that she might think otherwise.
Once again, Nik had taught her a hard lesson. A woman worthy of being treated like a queen had to maintain standards to exercise that power over a man. When she abandoned those standards, she was infinitely more likely to be treated like a booty call.
‘BETSY?’ CRISTO’S WIFE, Belle, questioned eagerly. ‘Why haven’t you been answering your phone? Where have you been? What have you been up to?’
It was a bad moment for her friend to have phoned because Betsy couldn’t concentrate. Betsy sank weakly down on an armchair and contemplated the results of her insane shopping trip to the nearest pharmacy: no less than five separate pregnancy-testing kits. And each and every one of the kits had given her the same answer. Ironically she was deeply familiar with such testing procedures. When she and Nik had still been together, whenever her menstrual cycle had shown the slightest deviation, she had rushed out to buy a test, inwardly praying for a positive result and each and every time she had been disappointed it had broken her heart afresh.
This time around, however, everything was very different. Betsy had been feeling out of sorts for weeks before she finally went to visit her GP and she had gone there without the smallest suspicion of the truth now facing her. Indeed she didn’t know how she would ever walk through the door of the doctor’s surgery again without feeling embarrassed. A simple test had disclosed the fact that she had inexplicably conceived and her response to the news had been more than a little hysterical while she told first the doctor and then the nurse that there had been a mistake, that they must have mixed up her results with someone else’s and that in any case, a pregnancy was a complete impossibility.
‘Betsy?’ Belle exclaimed. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, sorry, I’m just a little preoccupied right now.’
‘It’s the divorce, isn’t it?’ her friend said grimly. ‘You’ve been upset. That’s why you haven’t been in touch. What has that wretched man done to you now?’
Betsy compressed her lips, because astonishingly it seemed that Nik had contrived the impossible. In spite of the fact that he’d had a vasectomy and he was sterile, or whatever people chose to label it, and she had endured many months of striving to get pregnant by him and failing, a miracle or a catastrophe—depending on one’s viewpoint—had occurred and she was now carrying Nik’s baby. How on earth could that be possible? Betsy breathed in deep and slow because even sitting down she felt giddy and more than a little nauseous.
‘It’s not something I can share,’ Betsy said, inwardly wincing at that severe understatement.
‘Something happened when Nik brought Gizmo back to you...didn’t it?’ Belle prompted worriedly. ‘You haven’t been yourself since then—’
‘Yes, something happened,’ Betsy confirmed reluctantly. ‘But not something I can talk about right now—’
The pregnancy that she had once craved had actually materialised but she no longer had the support system of either a marriage or a father for her unborn child. That awareness put a very different complexion on the situation.
‘I just knew it was too good to be true when he gave you the dog back!’ Belle exclaimed heatedly. ‘And then the house, for goodness’ sake! Nik Christakis suddenly starts playing Santa Claus! There’s something wrong with that image—’
‘I promise I’ll phone you in a few days when I’ve sorted stuff out,’ Betsy cut in ruefully. ‘I’m sorry but I just can’t talk about this yet.’
Betsy switched off her phone and stared into space, rather than at the testing kits and packaging. There was no avoiding her next step: she needed Nik to explain how she could have fallen pregnant by a man who’d had a vasectomy. She could not possibly keep her condition a secret from him. Nik had to be told that he was going to be a father, whether he liked the idea or not. No, without a doubt, Nik had to be informed that he had got her pregnant and he had to be forced to accept that fact even if it meant the humiliation of having to undergo DNA testing as evidence after their child was born. Betsy was already excruciatingly aware that Nik would not want their child and would probably much prefer to believe that she had fallen pregnant by some other man, thereby absolving him from all responsibility and the threat of a continuing connection to the wife he could hardly wait to divorce.
Over the past two months Betsy’s spirits had steadily sunk into the doldrums. Coming to terms with the explosive passion that had plunged her into renewed sexual intimacy with her estranged husband had proved a mammoth challenge. The emotional wound Nik had inflicted was almost as great as the agony of feeling that she had seriously let herself down. Yet she wasn’t a victim, wasn’t a weakling, wasn’t one of those women who forgave a man no matter how badly he treated her. She had not forgiven Nik and she was mortified that she had gone to bed with him again.
What had made her feel even worse was the painfully obvious fact that Nik could not wait to draw a double black line below their marriage and mark it finished. He had returned Gizmo, and just two weeks earlier had offered her a very generous final financial settlement through his lawyers. All the writing was on the wall. He wanted out of their marriage fast. She knew how Nik operated. He was stubborn and impatient and as cutting as a polished steel blade. He didn’t waste time with anything he didn’t want, and anything he did want he wanted it yesterday and he most definitely wanted the divorce.
So, how was she to approach a male so eager to cut their final ties and forget about her and tell him news that he couldn’t possibly want to hear? Her small shoulders straightened with sudden spirit and purpose. Well, tough for Nik! He had got her pregnant, hadn’t he? He was the one who had neither warned her of that risk nor guarded her against it and the consequences were as much his fault as her own. He might not want children but the warmth stealing through Betsy at the knowledge that she carried her first child was already infiltrating the shock value of the same discovery. She wanted her baby and she knew he would not. The facts were there. A male who had had a vasectomy at such a young age could never have wanted a child. But mercifully what Nik wanted no longer needed to influence her, Betsy acknowledged with relief, and allowing herself to be intimidated by a development for